In June 2026, the BESA PSCRP authors analyzed a wide range of regional issues, including the recent developments in Eastern Europe, South Caucasus, and Central Asia.
In his thought-provoking opinion piece, Kiryl Kascian draws parallels between the contemporary anti-colonial critique and narratives inherent in Russian official propaganda. While “Russian official discourse has consistently promoted the claim that smaller states pursuing policies critical towards Russia, (…) do not possess fully authentic sovereignty,” the post-colonial discourse of today tends to treat smaller states as genuinely sovereign “mainly when they position themselves against the West”; otherwise, “their political agency suddenly becomes questionable.” The example of the Albanian leadership that supported Israel and was criticized for “ceding its sovereignty to Jerusalem” may be extrapolated to broader geopolitical rhetoric.
Velvl Chernin shares his observations on the Israeli perspective towards the future of the “decolonization movements of the peoples of the Russian Federation.” He finds it useful to understand what could potentially be at stake, even though the likelihood of these plans’ realization is very low at this moment. Chernin points to the noticeable “predominance of national movements representing traditionally Muslim peoples” within the Free Nations League, an umbrella organization for separatist and regionalist movements claiming parts of the Russian Federation’s territory. In May 2026, the “Council of the Tatars of the World” joined the FNL, which was announced by Ruslan Aysin, a prominent Tatar activist who has lived in Turkey since 2022 and was designated by Russian authorities as a foreign agent. Aysin is known to be openly hostile towards Israel and Jews, being a prominent supporter of Islamist movements. Among other controversial figures in the FNL is the President of the “Assembly of the Peoples of the Caucasus” and former Deputy Prime Minister of Ichkeria, Ruslan Kutayev, who had publicly attacked Israel and openly supported Hamas.
Velvl Chernin futher observes several challenges that the Ukrainian state and society may face if/when the country has the opportunity to return to peaceful life, based on both expert knowledge and personal experiences. Firstly, with the presidential elections postponed indefinitely, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s popularity is now affected by public fatigue, frustration, corruption scandals, and latent antisemitism. Secondly, relationships between different groups of Ukrainian citizens may become challenging: between those who served at the front and who remained in the rear (this issue is further aggravated by the public resentment toward the Territorial Recruitment Centers), those who remained in the country and refugee emigrants (some of which will eventually return and bring totally different experiences), and the attitude toward the population of the territories that have long been under Russian control.
Boris Ginzburg overviews strategic (re)considerations by Azerbaijan towards potential joining the Abraham Accords Declaration. He posits that Baku might have begun questioning the necessity of joining the AAD for the realization of Azerbaijan’s strategic goals in the region, considering that most of the motives behind the potential accession focus mainly on “improving Azerbaijan’s standing in Washington.” The public discourse in Azerbaijan is now less focused on the AAD, not least because relations with Washington have deepened even without the accession, and because of the fears of retaliatory measures by (now even less predictable) Iran. Ginzburg concludes that “Azerbaijan’s value to the Jewish state” will remain crucial even outside the AAD framework, especially in what concerns the relations with the new regime in Syria, as well as with Türkiye, Russia (to secure “at least a modest continuation of Russian military presence in post-Assad Syria”), and France.
Gershon Kogan analyzes the Tehran regime’s attempts to target the political imagination in post-Soviet societies. Across international platforms oriented toward Central Asian audiences, “Tehran is framed overwhelmingly as the aggrieved party,” and “internal Iranian dissent is systematically recast as externally sponsored provocation.” Central Asian states are effectively targeted because of transit and economic interdependence (generating “editorial self-restraint” when the “absence of critical coverage” is viewed as a signal) and Islamic networks and cultural proximity (which “produce a baseline interpretive disposition toward Iranian narratives”). Since the Iranian narrative reach in Central Asia cannot “operate through direct consumption of Persian- or Arabic-language state media,” it does so through indirect and uncoordinated media amplification (via Turkish-language outlets embedding Iranian framing within an Islamic solidarity narrative, and Russian-language aggregators and Telegram channels), which produce the “inoculation effect,” i.e., resistance to counter-narratives. Azerbaijan is a different narrative target and structurally inconvenient reference point, being framed as a platform for hostile operations against the IRI. Kogan also claims that “the analytical gap between Iran specialists and post-Soviet analysts is a structural vulnerability” that needs to be overcome.
Andrei Kazantsev-Vaisman shares his perspective on how the evolving role of the Middle Corridor as an indispensable land artery and its integration with the Indo-Israeli “Spice Route” can “forge a resilient, multilateral network of interchangeable nodes,” which he calls a “Eurasian arc of connectivity,” where “the interests of global actors no longer merely collide but have become functionally dependent on the stability of local states.” For regional actors, the priority remains the “maximization of cargo flows while maintaining the openness and de-politicization of the route,” and India is striving to secure stable access to Central Eurasia to establish a reliable bypass route that would function even in the event of regional destabilization. Kazakhstan may serve as the central gateway of the Middle Corridor and a “translator of interests,” capable of maintaining balance among various actors. Israel’s role may be one of the “intellectual integrator” of the MC and the “Spice Route,” providing AI-driven logistics, supply chain cybersecurity, and “smart customs,” which would transform Jerusalem into a “strategic crossroads for two of Eurasia’s largest logistical systems.”
Last but not least, Alexander Shpunt has prepared his regular overview of several important academic publications that deal with post-Soviet political and economic development.
In the upcoming months, the post-Soviet conflicts research program will continue to provide timely analysis of the ongoing events in the post-Soviet space.